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Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Revision & the Diagonal Rule

“The goal is perpetual motion. […] At every corner you leave
yourself an alternative. You move
diagonal. You turn the wheel when you
hit a red light. You don't drive down Broadway to get to Broadway. You move diagonal, you're gonna get perpetual
motion. That's what you want.”—Copland.

Reading your work
as if you hadn't written it has a lot to do with being forgetful. That's why you want to put a project out of
your mind for a period of time before you pick it up again, to foster impartiality. The challenge of revision, however, only
partly depends on distance. What the
task really comes down to is asking questions.

What am I trying to do with this moment? What does this bring to the story? Does it fit?

You should be able to justify any part of your story. If you look at your writing and feel lost, it
is likely because you cannot answer these questions. Consider them at every level, from the broad movements
of your story down to the individual images.
You'll usually know when you've written something wrong, because you
won't be happy with it. This should help
you explain why. That, or beat off the
perpetual self-doubt that plagues our fugitive kind.

Sometimes once you've identified a misstep in your writing, a
solution quickly presents itself. You
make the change and continue. Other
times, you struggle.

In these moments remember: there is more than one way your
story can come together. Unless you
enjoy staring out the window for twenty minutes at a stretch and sucking all
the momentum out of your process, take the block as a sign. Instead of forcing the issue, come at the
problem from a different angle. Move
diagonal. Surprise yourself, even, but
keep your goal in mind. Whether for
sentences or a whole scene, try out enough approaches and one is bound to
stick.

Don't be afraid to do something you didn't expect, even if
you're not sure where you'll end up. You
try things. That's your job as a
writer. Let your writing push out into
the dark. You'll be pleased how often
you can bend what at first seems like a tangent into the overall scheme of your
work. It is all you, after all. Let your brain make its subtle connections—your
storyteller's intuition. Blind
intuition, misguided maybe, but at least you're moving. Inertia
kills creativity. I'll gladly write
500 words to cut them all when I find 30 that are gold. Prospectors dig in the dirt their whole lives
and don't enjoy that sort of return. I'd
rather keep typing and get close than stare out the window and have nothing to
show for it.

Sometimes your goal is itself the problem. You may need to rethink what you initially
intended. It seems silly to have to say
it, but your first thought is not always your best. Here we stumble across that famous line “kill
your darlings.” Some struggles are
worth the fight. Anyone who has
fruitfully banged their head off a keyboard feels this in their aching
bones. You don't have to cut out the
things in your story that excite you just because they're flawed, but if you
can't make them work, you have to be honest with yourself about it and let them
go.

It's a shame if an otherwise good idea doesn't fit in with
the rest of your story, or you can't quite find the right shape for it, but you
shouldn't be distressed. You're a
creative person. You can drum up a
thousand thousand such ideas. You got
this far, after all. Why wouldn't you
have more in you?

The core of this whole strategy is that it lets you to see
just how many ideas you can generate.

In short, don't railroad your work. Don't feel tied to any draft or plan. Jag.
Move diagonal. If you surprise
and excite yourself, there's a good chance you'll do the same for the
reader. The opposite is also true. If you're bored with your work, consider that
a red light and turn the wheel.